This week we bring you Sarah Maile, a teacher at Sandbach Highschool and creator of Sandbach Feminists. The Sandbach Feminisits are a group at Sandbach Highschool fighting to urge the UK government to make it illegal for school uniforms to be sold in sex shops and used in pornography. They are fighting for this to end the sexualization of children, considering all children in the UK wearing uniforms are below the age of 16.
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This week we bring you Sarah Maile, a teacher at Sandbach Highschool and creator of Sandbach Feminists. The Sandbach Feminisits are a group at Sandbach Highschool fighting to urge the UK government to make it illegal for school uniforms to be sold in sex shops and used in pornography. They are fighting for this to end the sexualization of children, considering all children in the UK wearing uniforms are below the age of 16.
The View magazine is the only platform by and for women in the justice system. Every week we look at the flaws in the current system and solutions that will make it better and fairer, through art, creativity, acknowledging trauma, legal reform, reporting and oversight.
For more unmissable content from The View sign up here
Welcome to the View Magazine's Rebel Justice podcast. The View Magazine is the only platform by and for women in the justice system. Every week we look at the flaws in the current system and solutions that will make it better and fairer through art, creativity, acknowledging trauma, legal reform, reporting, and oversight. We recently have been showing support for the Send Back feminists on our social media platforms. There are a group at Send Back High School fighting to urge the UK government to make it illegal for school uniforms to be sold in sex shops and used in pornography. There are fighting for this to end the sexualization of children, considering all children in the UK wearing uniforms are below the age of 16. This week we bring you Sarah Ma Sarah talked about young feminist activism and what inspired her to work and volunteer her time at Send Back High School and create the send back feminists. Sarah, welcome. What made you get into teaching?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. That's a question. Um, if I'm honest, I, I wasn't sure what I was going to do, um, with my life. I finished university, um, and I was working at a bank and I, I wasn't enjoying it. I was just sort of paying the bills and then I got a letter through the Post saying, Did you want to do a, um, teacher training course because of the degree you did? And I thought, Well, I'll give that a go cause I'm not very happy at the bank. And I fell in love with it. Like literally the first day I was like, Oh my goodness, this is, I'd never thought I would be confident enough cause there was a really shy person growing up. I never thought I'd have the confidence to do a job like that, but I absolutely fell in love with it. It was brilliant. It was like, it was like coming home. It just felt right being in the classroom. I loved it.
Speaker 1:And what exactly brought you to send back high school considering it is a religious school?
Speaker 2:No. So, um, so much high. Um, so I did my degree at Chester University, which is about half an hour down the road. Um, and I really like the area. I liked it. Um, I'm actually, my family lived down south in Oxford and, and near Brighton. So, but I liked the people around here. I liked the area. And so I started applying for jobs in and around this area. And Sam Much High was one of them. And actually, if I'm honest, it Sam much High was my last interview up here. I had an interview lined up down south. I just thought, well, I'll give Samba a go. Um, and if not, I'll go to this interview down south. And I got it. And well, it's my 13th year. I, I thought I'd give it a go for a year and then see how I felt. Cause all my family and everybody was down south, but I absolutely loved it and I continued to absolutely love it. To this day, it is just the most incredible school full of the most incredible students and staff. I, I'm so happy there.
Speaker 1:What values do you promote consistently throughout your teaching
Speaker 2:From a personal view? So the school have a set of values that they sort of promote, which they hold very dear. So the school have five visions and values that they have, which is shaping futures, learning with passion, respecting difference, nurturing, ambition, and creating opportunity, all of which I like to incorporate into my teaching. Um, I think the one that I, that really resonates with me is respecting difference. So as a religious studies teacher and head of their PS h C program, um, and just on a really personal level, respecting difference has always been an absolute passion of mine to, and it was when I started teaching and realizing that young people have this incredible power that they don't realize and the influence that they have and the fact that when young people say things and young people contact adults in the adult world, you know, through things like I run an Amity International group letting the people know people in power, young people are interested in this and they're worried about this. And just the passion that that has is really important. So respect and difference has been my absolute focus, um, since I began and giving students. So I come, I came up with this sort of, it sounds a bit silly, but a tag three hashtags for the way I teach. And it's educate, equip, and empower. And it's all about that giving students the knowledge, giving students the understanding of the skills and giving them the, the feeling of power that realizing that they can make a difference and they can make a change in whatever it is that upsets them or worries them, that they are empowered enough to, and have the confidence to actually stand up and say, This is what I'm worried about. Let's make a change.
Speaker 1:So how did the send back feminist begin?
Speaker 2:Since I started, um, I ran, I've run an Amnesty International Club, um, every single week for 13 years. And one, gosh, this is going back to 2013, 2012, um, one lunchtime we were discussing human trafficking and the students were so engaged and they were absolutely up in arms and they're like, Miss, this is, we need to do something about this. And I was like, Well, you know, we'll do what we do every week and we'll write letters and we'll get, And they were like so keen. I said, Well, why don't we set up sort of a separate group that focuses on this issue completely separately to the amnesty stuff, which we can continue doing. So then I started running these two clubs and eventually the human um, the modern slavery bill was passed in 2014. And the students, I mean, they'd lobbied parliament, they took a letter, they physically went to Parliament with a letter to every single MP and every single Lord, and had loads of replies back. They even got a check from one of the Lords, really very, very, very supportive of the work they were doing. They worked with the local charity, um, and we had such an amazing, like, fundraising ideas, and they worked really, really hard. And when those, that particular kind of really passionate group left, other students joined, but they didn't have quite the same passion. So I sort of discussed them and was like, Well, you know, what issues make you angry? Or what do you want to do with this, this space that we have and this the power that you have. And at the time, they were really interested in on a base violence and on a base, um, killings. So we sort of started to look at that and raise awareness about that. And then that evolved and that became looking at fgm and then that of a, and then it became looking at breast ironing. And then during Covid, obviously in the wake of the Sarah Everard case, um, we had been sort of focusing generally on sort of safeguarding women's rights as kind of what the group became sort of a women's rights group. And we were discussing in the wake of the everyone's invited, um, survey, the incredible numbers or the shocking numbers, not incredible numbers, that's not a terminology at all, but the shocking, but not surprising numbers of people who had experienced sexual harassment on a day to day basis. And like plan, um, Plan UK were released in these statistics of one or three, um, school girls in school uniform experiencing sexual harassment. And you had groups like Our Streets now saying that 97% of women and girls that they interviewed had experienced sexual harassment at some point. And we were like, Well, let's sit down as a group and come up with what we really want from, from our world, from the world around us, and what do we want to change? So we came up with these six, I don't really know what, what to call them, I guess six aims, six requests of society. So we, we wanted, we were still focusing on the breast timing. So we wanted a specific law to say that breast timing is, um, you know, against the law similar to fgm, because whilst it comes under the umbrella of child abuse, which of course, you know, but we felt that the specificity of actually having a law that says breast iron is not allowed specifically and we thought would be really, really, um, important because quite often with breast iron, um, it's the mother doing it because she thinks that it is a kind loving, and, you know, it's the under, It's sort of changing that perspective and saying, no, it, it is illegal. And having that specific law, we wanted to make misogyny hate crime, which we're still, we're still fighting for all of these. Um, we want to, we want the government to declare in cells a, um, a terrorist organization like they've done in Canada, um, especially in the wake of the Plymouth, um, attacks last year, which they are investigating to see if they're terror attacks. But at the moment it doesn't come under the umbrella of a terror attack. And we've done a lot of work into the, in, in cell community, done a staff training on the in cells. We've met with Laura Bates, the author of, um, Men Who Hate Women. And we're doing a lot of work on sort of the growing in cell community, which is a worry for the students. And they wanted more focus, um, with their new online safety bill to protect women and girls in particular. And they wanna real focus on that because they are online all the time. And the lack of that specific protection that they really felt that they needed. And I know the one that was sort of leading to I'll make public sexual harassment a a crime full start, which is something that is obviously, um, an experience that they all have. Every single friend of mine, family member who is female, has experienced every person we've spoken to, um, about any of these things has had an experience of it. And then the last one is this real push to make it illegal to portray children in school uniforms, which is essentially what it is if you put an adult in a school uniform and put them into a sexual act in pornography, it is this hypersexualization of school uniforms, which perpetuates the society that accepts the sexualization of a school uniform. And the vast majority of people wearing school uniform are under the age of consent. They're under the age of 16. So sexualizing that is, we personally feel a foreign, it's, it's wrong. Um, and then removal of sort of se sexualized school uniform costumes from sex shops or like, all you need to do is type in school girl or school girl uniform into Google and you're bombarded with Amazon 1199 prime delivery, sexy schoolgirl outfit, school girls aren't sexy their children, they should not have that label as sexy adults shouldn't be buying sexy girl outfits, naughty school girl outfits. Um, so that's where it sort of developed to.
Speaker 1:And how did the send back feminists narrow their goals down to six specific things?
Speaker 2:Honestly, um, we could have had 10, um, at one stage we had this list of all these different issues, um, facing women globally, nationally, locally. And we just had this massive long list. And I was looking at them and I was thinking, the trouble is we meet once a week for 40 minutes. If we try and tackle all of these issues, we we're just not gonna have any. At the end of the day, I work with children and they need tangible, they need to see what they're doing is having some kind of impact. So when a MP writes back or when, um, like lots of charities have got involved and asked if they can come in and speak, or the police have come in and speak, and when they can see that what they're saying is having an impact in some way, shape, or form, that's really incredible. You should see them light up and the how they feel empowered. And my worry was if we had this 10, 20 different issues that we wanted to tackle, and there are so many, we're talking about girls access to education and the access to toilets around the world and the, like, the issues that that can, not having safe access to be able to go to the toilet leads onto other issues in clean and sexual violence. We, again, there were loads of issues to do with, um, access to the, this idea of sanitary products and women's hygiene products and just even the labeling that we have in this country was a concern. And they were like, Why don't we just call them period products? Like we'd tackling period stigma. There were so many different issues that they had. And in the end we had to narrow it down because we needed something that we could focus on. So there's a group of about 30 to 40 children that meet once a week. And otherwise it's just so big that just me and these kids, we can't tackle everything. So we just had to kind of make some decisions and choose the ones that they were. I think a lot of them are quite personal, um, to the students, um, that they feel very, very strongly about. And they can have that sort of connection too. Um, some of them are left over from past students who have gone and sort of remembering them and their hard work. So like the breast standing one, a lot of those students have now moved on and they've gone off to university, but you know, they were a part of this group. Um, and I wanna continue the work that they were doing.
Speaker 1:Have you ever experienced any backlash? And if so, what did you do in response to that backlash?
Speaker 2:So, um, I've chosen to keep the students completely anonymous, but my name has been attached to the, um, to the petition and to all the news articles. Initially we did have a bit of a giggle and we were looking at the comments and me and the students like, Oh, you know, this person said this, this person said that. Honestly, I've stopped looking at some of the comments. It got to the stage where it wasn't funny anymore. And a little part of me, like, you know, after we spoke to Laura Bates and she sort of explained some of the really, really, really uly horrific experiences that she's had, and I'm not even remotely on a part like that, it's completely different. But I was listening to her speak and I thought actually people online don't have any monitoring. They can pretty much say what they like, especially in comments and newspaper articles because it's completely anonymous. And I was just thinking actually, I, I don't really wanna read these anymore. They are upsetting. So I have stopped, um, you know, it's not something I want to read anymore. Um, initially I could say it was, was a bit like, Oh, you know, look, people are reading our article. Aren't they funny? They think this. And I was like, actually, as more and more people start saying some of the things, I mean, to be fair, the vast majority of people have been unbelievably supportive. Uh, and what's been really nice is the people who have said with quite negative things, the vast majority of the time there's about five or more people jumping on them and saying, Yeah, what are you talking about? Um, but I think it's human nature, isn't it. Rather than focus on the five who are really supportive, you end up focusing on the one negative comment because that's what humans do, isn't you, you shouldn't, but you do.
Speaker 1:How have you been able to watch your students progress throughout this program?
Speaker 2:Do you know? Honestly, it's been incredible. So when we first started this group, I think there are about seven students, seven quite, um, mature, articulate, I guess, oh, this sort of phase of the group. So like I say, the group's been going on for years and we've had different, um, weights, but, so it was literally because we were all in bubbles, we could only have one year group. Um, so I focused on year 10 and we had these seven year 10 students who used to come during Covid and we had to like full on bubble and wipe the tables down and all the rest of it. And then when we were all out of bubbles and we could have students from, I decided year nine and above, so sort of 14 and above because some, a lot of the content that we discuss is quite, it can be really difficult. Sometimes people share things. Some of the guest speakers we have come in share, you know, it's difficult and challenging content. So I wanted 14 and above because I felt that any younger was too young possibly for some of these stitch. Although ironically some of them actually face some of the issues we are discussing. But, um, you have to, I guess I'm, at the end of the day, these children, they are the, my absolute number one priority and I will safeguard them without a shadow of a doubt. So, um, so seeing that sort of develop from those seven to where we are now, where we actually have to borrow chairs from the next door classroom and we've got students who, students who have just shown from the beginning and are articulate and mature and confident and willing to share and speak. And then there are students who initially were very quiet, but were coming for one reason or another that they didn't necessarily share, but they've grown in their confidence and as a group, they've come together and they're all, I think they're proud. I really think they're proud. They have a little badge, they all come every week. And I sometimes get emails from students saying, I'm really sorry, I can't make it this week, miss. And it's like, but you don't have to, It's a club. It's, it's not a class. You come if you want. You don't come if you don't. And they are, I genuinely think they're really proud of the group and the work they're doing. And you should see, like when we do, um, assemblies and stuff, like we've been going into primary schools to talk about what sexual harassment is and what sort of inappropriate and appropriate behavior is. And we've been, all I have to do is say, Right, who's up for doing this? And I send down a list and you've got loads of names on it and like we did a staff training on sexual harassment and it in cells and sometimes it's students who, that I think maybe wouldn't have had the chance or felt the confidence to stand up and talk about things, let alone things like this. But they've got this, I've always wanted my classroom to be a safe space. I want every child, whether they're in my actual lessons or in they're in my clubs to feel safe. And I just feel that I can see that growing and this pride that they have and the confidence that's coming from it is, is wonderful.
Speaker 1:Do you have any specific memories that happened during the campaign that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2:I think it was one of those that, for the, the school uniform one, it was when we were talking about it and we were talking about the fact that we believe that this is at the root of some of the other issues that they face and some of the other issues that women face and young girls face is this, by allowing school uniform to be in pornography and sex shops and sold sex costumes, you are essentially morally sort of suggesting that children can be sexual beings and therefore that's having a knock on effect to our stu to our students. Um, they have walked down the street and faced sexual harassment in their school uniforms, our students, students from other schools, um, myself, when I was at school, I think we've, it's a collective. It's seeing, um, or mom's net are petition shared and all of these different women of different ages going, Oh my gosh, yes, that happened to me, or I remember that happening. Or my granddaughter that, you know, is in school for. And they, and seeing that it is a shared experience of women and girls across, I mean, we're in a French newspaper and we're in French Huffington Post at the moment and they're sharing it and they're talking about it. I honestly, my friend speaks French, I've had to send it to her to sort of clarify a hundred percent what we're saying. But you know, it's not even a national thing. A lot of people are saying, Well, yes, no, we agree this is, this isn't right. And I mean, I think it was when I went to my head teach and I said, Look, I'd like to do this and I'd like to attach it. Obviously it's quite a, um, a challenging topic. And to turn around to her head teacher and say, Look, we'd like to release this and it is gonna be attached to the school, as she was incredibly supportive and she was like, Yeah, let's do it. And as a, so she's, um, only she took over the school two years ago. So it was a, i I can see why I, some head teachers might have gone, Ooh, we're talking about literally having pornography and sex shot wording, obviously attached to a high school. Ooh. But she was like, No, I agree. They shouldn't have school uniform in these places. Let's do it. I really support you. I support the students, I support their voice. And I was like, this is, you know, it's women supporting women. It's, they're fantastic. She was so supportive and that was really exciting. It was exciting to see it published, you know, in newspapers and speaking to people and people being on board and people, the vast majority, I mean, we've spoken to different people from different walks of life and the vast majority of being so supportive. And I think that's just really empowering for the kids. Like seeing them listen to adults who are nodding and going, Yep, yep, we support you is just, and watching the kids sit there and go, Yeah, you know, I'm making a difference is wonderful.
Speaker 3:That is great. That was all the questions we had for you today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:When you guys were on Instagram supporting us and it's putting those bits up, the kids were obsessed. They were so excited. Every day they're like, Miss, they've done this stand and they've done this time. Share, share, share. They were so excited. It just meant, it meant a lot to me on a per, you know, like to me, but what means so much to me is seeing my kids that excited and proud and just, they feel so supported. Thank you so much what you've done for them. You were the first people to really support this your magazine. And it just, it means the absolute world to, to me, but the kids. And that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:And this concludes our podcast for today. Thank you Sarah, so much for taking the time to meet with us and for inspiring so many young feminists out there. We at the view will continue our support for the sandbag feminists. Thank you for listening.